Vital
by MyMadness
Summary: It was the word 'vital' that had beset him. Yes, yes, everyone who knew her considered her a vital, lively woman. But Higgins now felt that she was vital to him. A necessary, life-affirming thing that he was meant to... Mine is, most simply, a story of sudden realizations and slow declarations. Now with fireworks far too late for Indepence Day!
1. Chapter 1

_Vital_

_I knew I could not post here unless I had something original to add. There have already been so many wonderful stories which resolve the ending of the My Fair Lady story. For months I have felt I had nothing I could possibly add, especially after devouring every installment left by vcatrashfiend. I wondered if there was possibly anything new to say._

_I hope this qualifies. This starts off with a bang, in that I will immediately make you privy to Henry's thoughts and he is, after all, a male with (repressed) desires. This works, this having it in the first page of the story, because we have the movie as preamble, and I think it in-character._

_This begins with the scene at Mrs Higgins' house at the near-end of the movie and immediately changes the whole game. There is movie dialogue sprinkled throughout the first chapter, however._

_Mine is, most simply, a story of sudden realizations and slow declarations._

* * *

"She's gone," Professor Higgins said, sounding distinctly confused and wretched.

"Well, of course, dear. What did you expect?" His mother sighed. As angry as she was at him, Mrs. Higgins found it impossible not to be moved by the state he was presently in. "I heard you with Eliza," his mother said cautiously. "You do not _really_ suppose that the Colonel would propose marriage?"

Turning on his heel, Henry was now forced to really consider that quick, idle notion he had hurled at Eliza. "Would he marry her?" he asked himself out loud.

His rather impressive brain set at that problem and sussed it in short order._ Pickering might,_ Higgins realized with a palpable start. And he pictured the unlikely pair in his mind. _I suppose he just might __-__ out of some desire to protect her._

He held a hand to his head while he tried to envisioned such a marriage. The union he saw was polite and friendly and antiseptic.

But glaringly, desperately wrong.

Because a marriage – not that Higgins had any use for one – was about more than protecting someone. At least, it was supposed to be.

And Pickering would never feel emboldened enough to... well, pursue something _physical_ with their former pupil.

"God help me," Henry mumbled to himself when he realized the unforgivable and indiscreet direction his imagination had taken.

Higgins walked towards the far side of the room, as if afraid his thoughts could be overheard. What he saw in that moment - no matter how hard he tried not to let the thoughts come - was that should _**he**_ marry Eliza, he would most certainly want that... something. He would want that fullness. That promise. The secret shared.

His mind supplied it then, succinctly, but traitorously. A vision. Eliza's pulse beneath his lips as he pressed to her.

_Oh, dear Lord._

There was a moment's internal panic then that made him grip his chest, and there were more flashes of things he could not stop.

_This should not be happening_, he told himself by way of resisting. He was a man, yes. One who understood it was likely impossible to be devoid of these urges. _But_ was he not a man apart? A reasonable and intelligent man, who had happily relegated these things to an ill-used corner of his mind and life?

He had these thoughts, occasionally. Certainly less often than he did 20 years ago. But they were, as a rule, anonymous. Rather abstract.

But just now he was being plagued by visions... and well, desires... that were entirely too specific in their chosen target.

Until it felt as if he had possessed her. Truly. Not only as a man might do at this distance, virtually and with something - some sanity - in reserve.

"Henry?" his mother prompted.

The unstoppable thoughts finally stopped. Cold showered as only a mother's voice can.

He never should have told Eliza that she could most likely marry Pickering. That was what had started all of this. "Damn me," he muttered, feeling quite angry with himself.

_And damn this childish substitution of base desire for logical thought._

_But this lapse didn't matter_, he assured himself a second later. Any thoughts of a shared bed did not mean a thing. Because Higgins _knew_ he wouldn't marry her. That much was easily obvious when rationality was applied. It had been a terribly foolish, regrettable stray thought, he told himself with a returning confidence. A brief loss of control. Nothing more.

_Nothing more, _he assured himself again with an adjustment to his waistcoat as he thrust his chin higher.

_But... _suddenly it was the word 'vital' that had beset him. Yes, yes, everyone who knew her considered her a vital, lively woman. But Higgins suddenly felt that she was vital to him. A necessary, life affirming thing.

He could feel his breathing coming quicker with his mind's renewed betrayal. And he saw Eliza again, behind his tightly closed lids. It was her smile that worked at him, the one she gave when she was most at ease, most happy. He felt her fingers run firmly across his shoulders (as they never had). The skin of her neck beckoned, warm. Inviting.

_Henry? _His name would escape her lips in a breathy, pleading sort of way.

He groaned. For six months he had avoided this path; these idiocies and these distractions, and now in one instance he had catapulted past the path entirely and to a quite detailed destination.

_Oh. Bloody. Hell._

"Henry!" His mother's voice was louder now. "You are acting altogether quite strangely - even for you," Mrs Higgins pronounced as she walked closer to her son. She narrowed her eyes at him and seemed to take a moment to consider what she saw. "I won't ask if you are in love with her or merely wounded over losing you best toy. I don't trust you, frankly, to know your own heart. Or to give me an honest answer. "

He was nervously biting a knuckle now, but he stopped for a moment. "Don't be ridiculous, Mother."

"But," she continued, "what would you do if you were to suspect that she had fallen in love with _you_?"

Startled, he looked up from his inspection of the damage he had inflicted to his hand. "Has she?"

"I should think her fit for an asylum if she has, given the way that you have treated her recently..."

"But...?" Henry said, stepping closer, sensing there was more.

"But these things happen," his mother allowed. "Pupils fall in love with their teachers. Patients with their physicians. But it would be a feeble, temporary attachment. At least, I suspect it would."

"Yes, yes..." He hummed his non-committal sort of agreement.

"And that woman who assailed and impressed you with her speeches and her surety today? She will likely give way to someone else tomorrow."

"What are you trying to say?" he queried, roughly.

"I was going to counsel you to be patient, Henry. And understanding. To refrain from teasing Eliza, should she ever deign to meet with you again. But then I realized the folly of asking such a thing of you." She sighed her frustration. "She's a wonderful girl. And courageous, Henry, that she would spend half an hour in your company, let alone all these months. But I suspect that Eliza's not quite as strong as she pretends to be."

Henry seemed to weigh the words, but then in a fit of something akin to pouting, he could only demand of his mother, "But what about me? What am _I_ to do?"

"Do without, I suppose," the sage woman replied.

He stammered. Inside, he was stumbling. And in that moment of confusion, he worked himself up to the best approximation of anger at Eliza that he could muster.

"And so I shall! If the Higgins oxygen burns up her little lungs, let her seek some stuffiness that suits her. She's an owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine. Very well. Let her go, I can do without her. I can do without anyone!"

His mother was not persuaded that there was any real rage in this tantrum, any more than in the hundreds of tantrums she had witnessed while rearing him. Still, this one was harder to watch.

She held her tongue, and a second later, Henry was gone with a flourish.

"Bravo, Eliza," Mrs Higgins pronounced, once she was alone.

/

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

Higgins punished the pavement with his feet until he felt the indignation taken from him like wind leaving a sail. It all fell away when he found there was one thing he could not refute.

He missed her. As ridiculous as it was, he missed Eliza already. Profoundly. Having her near was not just something he had grown to expect. She was...

_Oh, damn. Damn. Damn. DAMN!_

Her company was something desired. Needed. Craved and sought. But dear Lord, he wanted to reject that thought. He fought against it just as he fought against the rising vision of her with Freddy. He battled his own folly, until he knew any bystander on the street would have deemed him decidedly unstable.

/ / / / / / /

"You _aren't _going over to apologize. Not when you were right!" Mrs. Higgins insisted of Eliza.

"No. I'm just going to smooth things over."

Mrs. Higgins' look was almost pitying. "If," she stressed, "that sort of thing is even possible."

"If," the younger woman agreed. "If it's even possible. Yes."

… … … ...

The door to his house was unlocked, and Eliza pushed in quietly. Indistinct sounds met her and she followed them. Something was playing, she could hear.

Something on the gramophone.

Her.

That realization stopped her. Stilled her feet and her breathing once she had entered the library.

She hadn't known he was quite that sentimental. Looking at him, hunched in his chair, she found she truly couldn't be angry with him.

_Oh, damn, _she allowed, indulging a little silent profanity over the state of him and the raw state of her own insides. She sighed, struggling with what best to say to the professor.

"I washed my face and hands before I come, I did." It was a gentle offering. An attempt to ease the two of them into some sort of forgiveness. And she had no idea if it would work at all.

"Eliza?" With just one word, he managed to sound both thankful and relieved. "Where the devil are my slippers?" A new tone now. But she wasn't fooled by any resemblance to bravado.

Still, his posture changed with that statement. He slipped forward and pushed the hat over his eyes. He was uncomfortable with how vulnerable he was, but unwilling to be anything else just now.

Eliza saw in that moment how well she knew this man. His moods. The pride. His soul and needs. And she took her first steps towards him.

The slippers had been placed beside the chair again, of course. Mrs. Pearce would have done that. Eliza said nothing, just eased forward until she could stand in front of Higgins.

She tried not to smile as she looked him over. How boyish (rather than merely childish) he was being just now, hiding behind his hat.

With a less-than-dignified grab, Eliza pulled an ottoman to her.

She sat down, reaching for his crossed ankles as she did so. She touched him carefully, yes. But not cautiously, she found. He flinched for a moment at her touch and then, with obvious effort, he forced himself to relax.

Given the harsh words they had traded, she mused, he may have expected some sort of violence from her.

His feet rested across her knees now, and she began to tug at the laces of one shoe. She worked unhurriedly. One shoe was placed on the ground. Then the other.

He groaned with relief. His toes flexed unconsciously, and she wanted to laugh with a strange sense of joy. But then, any time he showed her the mere man he was, rather than the professor, it always thrilled her.

Her hand rested at his shin as she leaned down again to retrieve his slippers. Slowly, she reveled in owning this scene between them. She knew something no one in the world would believe. She could slow him down. She could leave him silent... at least this once. Finally, she made a deliberate show of putting his slippers on his feet.

"Better?" she asked, meaningfully.

"Much."

They were quiet then, both knowing the exchange was about a great deal more than the state of his feet.

With a bit of adjustment to the hat, he peeked at her finally.

She saw things much more clearly now, as well. These past several months, he had worked and waited for her to transform. Now it was she who would wait, she realized. But only if she wanted to do such a thing.

"You only did what I asked, by teaching me," she said. "I can't be angry—not angry with you—over my situation now."

He pulled his legs up to put his feet on the floor. "Then you are ahead of most of the world's population, which readily blames everyone else for what they have done," he whispered kindly. His elbows came to rest on his knees, and he cautiously leaned a little closer.

She nodded.

"You managed a great deal, Eliza. Amazing things." He paused, seeming a little less sure of himself then. "You gave me that triumph."

"Thank you."

"Oh, enough," he pronounced in something of a grumble. He was growing squeamish with the rising sentiment. "We will figure out something for you to do. If you want our help."

She smiled. Stood. And he followed suit, looking anxious.

"I should retrieve a few things from my room here, if you don't mind."

They walked the stairs slowly, and side by side. He smiled unconsciously, thinking of the staircase they had managed together at the Embassy Ball. Her nerves that night had endeared her to him. Made him want to reassure and comfort her. Made him think all manner of ill-advised, unreasonable things.

It was dangerous to be a man. But thrilling. He had, perhaps, forgotten at least one of those two things in the past decade.

He watched from the doorway while she packed a small bag. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his shoulder firmly lodged against the doorjamb in a familiar posture. But his face was different. She could not remember ever seeing this expression.

Eliza retrieved two slim volumes from her bedside. "These belong in your library," she said, as she extended them towards him.

"Take the books. I have extra copies of those two, I am sure." She doubted that. But she smiled at him and carefully placed the books in her bag.

Her valise was almost full. It was time to go. Again.

"Is the Colonel here?" she asked, hopefully.

There was that wry, amused smile that she so enjoyed from him. "He's off at the Home Office, visiting an old friend and concocting a plan for finding you, no doubt. Rather than sweeping London, I took the more direct, logical route. I asked that man-child Freddy where you might be."

All he got from her in reply was a thin smile. She was too smart to discuss Freddy. He rebuked himself for not being at least that intelligent in this instance.

Still, Henry could not help but remember the meeting. He recalled the profound relief he'd felt that the pair had not immediately eloped.

His breath had caught as he had recounted what he considered a tragedy avoided. Higgins looked at the floor quickly before he managed any more. "I regret my anger, Eliza. But you _were_ behaving quite ridiculously over him."

She ignored the comment, but held his eyes. "Be well, Professor." She risked a hand to his arm in parting then. "It isn't goodbye, I hope. I will be seeing you, I should think."

"You are off to my mother's, then?" He damned the emotion evident in his voice.

She nodded and looked apologetic. "I..."

"We both have our pride; I understand." He had cut in early to save her some of hers. "You don't relish feeling like a beholden house guest. But she will enjoy having you there."

"Thank you." And with that said, there was nothing left to do but turn for the stairs and head down.

He didn't follow her. Instead, he sat on the bed and catalogued with amazement how utterly bewildered the past 24 hours had left him.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: So, I have three stories in the hopper, and I might be a tad distracted with all that life stuff. Okay. Completely distracted._ _ Sorry. Big thanks to dancesabove for eyeballing all of this._

_Go Henry! Not that he knows what he is doing, but he is going to hang in there until he figures it out._

* * *

"Come to dinner? Well, yes. All right," Henry answered his mother on the telephone a few days later. "Will Eliza be there?"

"She will. Why?"

"Just that forewarned is, well..."

"_Forearmed_, Henry? Forearmed?! There will be _none_ of that," Mrs. Higgins said, quite sternly.

He hadn't meant what his mother had assumed. God knows, he was more worried about _defending_ against Eliza than assailing her.

… ... …

On that evening, it was Colonel Pickering who ventured a quick whisper to Mrs. Higgins to ask about where things stood between Eliza and Freddy.

"Not quite enough substance there to hold her interest," their hostess whispered back. "And Freddy is, I think, appalled to find so much substance in Eliza."

It was not but another minute or two before Eliza appeared, apologizing for her lateness.

Henry's mood had been greatly buoyed by what he had overheard from his mother. Having Eliza in front of him, reminding him of how striking and vibrant she was, helped his mood a great deal as well. He found himself behaving quite magnanimously towards Eliza. Yes, he had had the slightest libation to steel himself for seeing her again – but he immediately felt its effect doubled.

Higgins gave Eliza a quick bow, in his manner of mocking such formalities. Then he smiled quite genuinely as he eased forward a half-step more and quietly expressed his pleasure at seeing her.

It was more a family dinner than a formal dinner party; Henry's Sunday manners did not even get tested. After dessert he walked to his mother's sitting room and threw himself bodily into a chair. The Colonel and Eliza watched disapprovingly as he twisted sideways to lounge with his long legs over the arm.

Mrs. Higgins' fan caught him in the ankle bone in reprimand, and he yelped. "Mind the furniture, Henry," she told him tiredly.

He twisted again, making a show of being uncomfortable. Higgins was preoccupied while his formal pupil glided past. Eliza silently walked to the edge of the room to retrieve a small foot stool. When she placed it in front of him, without any hint of bad humor or disapproval, it was his mother who spoke.

"You'll spoil him," Mrs. Higgins warned, quite seriously.

It took Henry a moment to recover. First from the sight of Eliza stooping to gather up the small thing (because that had been a sight that reaffirmed his physical weaknesses). And then from the wholly accepting manner with which she made a gift to him of the stool.

Henry gloated then as he made a show of putting up his feet. "Oh, yes. Much better. Thank you, Eliza."

/ / / / / /

Two weeks later Henry tossed his hat on his mother's hall table and, smiling, bestowed the expected kiss to the old woman's cheek.

"Eliza's not here," Eleanor Higgins peevishly informed her son.

"Why do you suppose I am here to see _**her**_?" he blustered.

"I don't know," his mother answered, sarcastically. "I suppose because otherwise I'd have to believe you were tripling your visits to me recently."

Henry clasped his hands behind his back and tried to look wounded. "I have things I wanted to ask the dratted girl."

"About your laundry? Papers? Appointments?"

"I don't know what it matters, why I've come!" came his strident protest.

"Ha! It would certainly matter to me... if I were the one you wanted to see. She's promised to come help you on Tuesday. Certainly, your household mundanities can wait until then."

She walked towards the sitting room at the sight of his frown; he silently followed.

They kept up their silence until tea arrived to signal the need for détente. They sat opposite each other, the service between them.

"I never had a daughter. Or any child receptive to the things I wanted to share," Mrs. Higgins said as she poured.

"So, she is your project now?"

"_You_ only taught her how to speak," his mother replied wickedly.

"Only?!" Henry thundered.

"You never helped her find something more to _say_. Some new interest," she explained. "Eliza's taking lessons while she's with me. Art. Music. French. She and the Colonel have their eyes on a nice little shop, as well. Did you know she has a lovely talent for needle work?"

He tried not to roll his eyes. And failed. "We were rather _busy_, mother. Rather too busy for..."

"And I mean to get her out. To plays, and the orchestra."

Henry slumped in his chair like a pouting child. "Well, enjoy yourself."

Side-stepping his mood, she told him, "I want you to ask that Jonathan Lawrence friend of yours to make a fourth."

"Lawrence?" Higgins quizzed back, straightening up in a shot.

"Yes. That's it. Jonathan. The butterfly man."

"The lepidopterist? You can't fix her up with _him!_ Eliza's such a lovely specimen. He'll want to pin her wings. Stick her up on display." With his typical inability to sit still, Henry rose from his chair and acted out the whole unlikely prediction.

Mrs. Higgins waited less-than-patiently for her son to finish. "He was widowed 18 months back, I believe. I see his mother occasionally, and she says it is time the poor man got out again. You would come, too."

Henry began to pace. "Take Pickering," he shot back.

"He won't come," she said unhappily. "He finds my selection too off-putting."

"Don't tell me…" he said, smiling perversely. "Madame Butterfly."

"Yes."

He shook his head and pretended to glare at his mother. "Me? You? A lepidopterist and Eliza at Madame Butterfly. Damned odd. And a damned strange foursome," Higgins said, wearily.

"Then you stay home."

/ / / / / / / /

Henry didn't, of course.

He allowed Lawrence to escort Eliza, but he rarely took his eyes from her over the course of the evening. As Higgins watched the way Eliza moved through the world on nights like tonight, he wasn't fooled. They were both keen observers, she and he. And both outsiders. Prone to never fitting in.

When she leaned _his_ direction and whispered to him that evening, asking why things were done a certain way, often he could only say that they were. Not that he understood why society had the trappings it did, either. They shrugged together over it. And he enjoyed that.

But then she was back to Lawrence with politeness. Henry watched each interaction. Each expected smile she bestowed. She was cordial to the butterfly man. But she was not drawn to him, Henry decided. She was not at all taken in.


	4. Chapter 4

_We left our pair at the theatre with Mrs. Higgins and an unlucky lepidopterist._

/ / /

Henry watched each interaction. Each expected smile she bestowed. She was _cordial _to the butterfly man. But she was not drawn to him, Henry decided. She was not at all taken in.

Higgins chased Lawrence off after the performance rather roughly. With his typical (lacking) diplomacy, the professor assured the younger man that he would see the ladies home himself. "You recognize the sense in that, certainly," he said.

He did not wait for the answer.

… ... ...

Outside his mother's now, Henry climbed down from the taxi and then helped the two women out. His mother passed quickly into the house, like a silent, well-dressed wave. Eliza lingered a moment on the pavement, trying not to stare and wondering what _he_ would do.

After a mental tug-of-war he did not understand, Higgins told the taxi to wait. Turning then, he considered Eliza. She was so very different from the bulk of women. There was no artifice. No design. Just the same guileless unease. On her it had a lovely... attraction.

They said nothing as they finally walked into his mother's foyer.

Elenore had gone straight up. It was just the two of them, and a distant footman in the shadows by the door. "You don't want to be fawned over," Higgins whispered over her shoulder, as he removed her cloak quite carefully.

"I would rather be useful. Be talked _with._ Not at_._"

The footman disappeared once he had wordlessly relieved Henry of the garment. And Henry began to wonder what he was possibly doing there. It was common for him to not understand what others were doing. He found it odd and disorienting to not understand his own actions.

Eliza lingered downstairs, expectant and aware. Her face a sort of question. If Henry had had an eye for that sort of thing, he would have seen her own disorientation.

Higgins stood close, but with his hands shoved into his pockets. His head lowered and his back rounded. He was keenly, almost painfully, aware that he was close enough to touch her. _Really_ touch her. But that he wouldn't.

He was no longer able to do such a thing. There was that change. One that they both felt.

When they had been at their speech experiment for all those months, he was constantly arranging her as he would a piece of equipment. His hands had often roughly squared her shoulders, lifted her chin.

She thought about that. That brusqueness was how it had begun. But his touches had had more gentleness and deference as the months had gone on... Even if his tongue had softened only half as much.

Although she had started as one more piece of equipment in his lab, she knew she was not that now. But that did not tell her just what she _was_ to him. And for the life of her, she did not know what she wanted him to be to _her_.

But close was... good, she found.

They could neither of them meet the other's eyes. It was Henry who finally broke the silence.

"What is this?" He had spoken his innermost confusion unwittingly. "It is difficult in one minute, and all ease the next," he complained.

"You mean, between us. You mean that we seem different... recently?"

He could only nod.

"Perhaps it isn't that we have changed. Not fundamentally. Just the situation," she tried.

Henry mulled this. "We have _always_ been like this... in each other's company?"

"Not always, perhaps. But... when I try to _remember_..." she said uneasily.

"Those months," he asked, seeming genuinely lost. "Does it all seem unlikely? Something imagined?"

"Yes."

_So we both feel it,_ he thought with a nod and a bit of rising confidence as he leaned away.

"I suppose that is a reason for us to stay..." _Not **together**. Don't say together, _he told himself_._ "In contact." _Oh, God, that's even worse, _he thought, a hand to his head.

"We are... co-conspirators?" Eliza supplied, seeming impish and happier now. "Like madmen sharing a delusion?"

This new paradigm appealed to him. A temporary madness could explain it all. "Yes. Quite!" He gifted her a beautiful smile.

And that made her worry about what she had possibly said.

Once he had made a mockery of kissing her hand, he was gone – and all without a proper 'goodbye.'

* * *

_tbc. Short, but hopefully sweet. The chapter just naturally broke here. I do not know if it is Henry's influence, but I find this story to be coming to me in ill-mannered and noticeably brusque chapters. Thanks so much for reading. My thanks to dancesabove, as well._


	5. Chapter 5

/ /

A week later Henry stood at the mantel in his mother's house with his typical impatient bearing. In place of any proper greeting, he groused at his mother when she finally swept in. "Why is it we are always waiting on you and then Eliza to appear?"

Colonel Pickering made a quick bow towards Eleanor and smiled with a sort of consolation. "Really, Higgins," he said over his shoulder. "I don't mind waiting on the women of this house one jot." He turned his attention back fully to the man's mother then before saying, "They never disappoint."

Henry fidgeted, physically torn between wanting to continue his train of thought and wanting to reply to what he considered an odd, pandering comment on Pickering's part.

When Higgins saw that his mother actually appreciated that remark from the older man, he rolled his eyes. His company tonight was hopeless, he decided. The evening doomed... unless Eliza was in a mood to be reasonable.

Twisting then, Higgins plainly checked the doorway to see if Eliza's arrival was imminent. With a bit of a smile, he picked up where his thoughts had been a moment before. "She," he said stabbing the air toward the other room, "has thrown off Freddy. Thank God. Nor does she have any use for that Lawrence fellow..."

Mrs. Higgins noted with a sigh that her son seemed to be cataloging Eliza's suitors the way he did books. In this case, used, second additions no one should allow into their library.

"I don't understand what you are on about, Henry. Are you waiting for her to settle on someone? Or noting that she doesn't seem to have a need to?" his mother complained as she took her seat.

Henry looked away as if studying something quite fascinating in the wallpaper. "It's just all very... _disruptive_," he said, as if that was at all believable.

Disruptive? Wondering at her son's performance, Henry's mother decided that perhaps things had not been disruptive enough.

… … …

So, it was Mrs. Higgins who threatened the new status quo a mere week later, after another shared dinner. "We should all go back to Brighton, perhaps. I know at the very least Eliza has earned an outing."

Colonel Pickering was immediately and enthusiastically for it.

Henry let up a dismal, lengthy groan.

Eliza simply stopped breathing.

A wash of panic worked through the young woman as she finally refilled her lungs. It was only later that Eliza came to understand her body's reaction. That night, tucked warm and safe in bed, she thought on things, and she came to see that it had been that _original_ trip to Brighton with its otherworldliness that had given rise to new feelings toward the professor.

Feelings that she could only term 'different.' And, well, 'unhelpful.'

/ / /

A week later the foursome was at the shore, whether happily or not. The older pair good-humoredly stayed to the pier. The Colonel was so kindly attentive to Mrs Higgins that Eliza found herself sighing wistfully from her vantage point.

As Eliza gaily walked the beach, she bent to scoop up those things that interested her. The wind pulled at wisps of her hair, and she grinned contentedly to herself. Henry turned his head rather than face the sight of her like that. She was too beautiful. Too disarming.

Too dangerous.

Her hands full of pebbles and shells and bits of wood, she set upon Henry quite sincerely, quite innocently, and asked him to hold what she'd found.

It was inconceivable that Henry Higgins would extended his hands to allow her to pour her treasures into his palms. But he did. He was at a loss over himself. Speechless as he looked up from his full hands to the sight of her whirling away.

But then he was shocked to even find himself here in Brighton after his week's worth of pained objections.

A half hour later the group was walking along the boardwalk when Henry suddenly growled. He had absent-mindedly put his hands into his pockets only to remember they were brimming with Eliza's finds. He extracted a pebble and made a theatrical production of threatening to drop it to the ground.

"Ooo, you don't dare! Those are mine," Eliza told him with a catlike edge to her new manner of speech. Quite forgetting herself, she grabbed for his wrist, and he let her. Smiling over how provoked she was, he let her hold him there for a second. And a second more.

The elder couple had stopped and turned to watch the show. Because, oh, the young woman certainly _did_ have a hold on him, and quite obviously in more ways than one. Anyone passing by could see that much.

"Yours?" Henry teased. "Then why is this... debris in _my_ pockets?" he asked with a smirk. "I will trail these things behind me as I go... like a signal. Here on the pavement. And some sane person will follow on – rescue me from the lunacy of this little outing."

The two of them froze then until she dropped her hand from him too late for innocence. The shared thought from the couple who stood further up was quite simple. Higgins didn't want to be rescued. Whether the man knew it or not, he was where he wanted to be.

Of course, his mother well knew that that did not mean the wretched soul couldn't ruin things, soundly.

There was an air of the child in both Henry and Eliza. And Eleanor watched as something her son now said to Eliza provoked the girl's sudden laughter. Henry did not allow himself to join in, but his smile was joyful. Almost proudly wicked. His eyes rested intently on Eliza who moved ahead now to walk with Pickering. Mrs. Higgins took Henry's arm.

"Some seriousness, you two. No one will seat us for dinner if you are misbehaving," the elder woman warned.

"You'll make it worse, I'm afraid," the Colonel said over his shoulder.

"Yes," Eliza agreed quietly. "He likes a certain amount of scolding." She snuck a look back at her former tutor and there was a shamed wag of his eyebrows.

… … …

What the Colonel noted was that although the man had threatened to rid himself of her treasures, he did not. Hugh did not want anymore tomfoolery on Higgins part to ruin the day. And so once to the station for the trip back, he prodded the man to help him package the contents of his pockets into his handkerchief. And when Pickering's was full and knotted like a little tramp's bundle, the Colonel's prodding became quite physical. "Yours now, Higgins."

Henry snapped the cloth from his coat pocket with feigned frustration and arranged it on the train station counter where Hugh was working. "This sort of indulgence is why women are ridiculously demanding."

"Oh. Tosh. Eliza _demands_ nothing from us. But she makes it ever a pleasure to be nice to her." Hugh paused in his work then and eyeballed Higgins in a way that made the younger man lean away. "Really, a pleasure. Don't you think?"

"Think? With all of this foolishness? I haven't managed a coherent thought all day," Henry tried to complain.

"You would tell me if you were angry with me, Higgins," Hugh wanted to know a few moments later.

"This idiot day wasn't _your_ fault!"

The older man laughed quickly and then worked a bit distractedly at the bundle in front of him. "Not that. No," he rumbled good-naturedly. "Are you put out that I've had Eliza hanging about that flower shop where the owner owes me a favor? Where she's been getting the feel for things, so that she can make up her mind about all that."

When the words finally came out of Henry they sounded less than convincing. "It's your money. Your time."

"If it all interferes with your plans. I mean, your plans to have Eliza _help_ you at the house some days..."

"As if I would be... befuddled without her help," Higgins replied.

"'Befuddled' might be the wrong word. I was thinking 'lost.'" Colonel Pickering was smart enough to smile at his friend as if the whole thing was nothing more than a joke. "Lost for want of the exciting company she provides."

_The man has got too much sun_, was all the professor could think. "You all right, Pick?" Henry wondered with a quizzical look.

Once the little packages were properly secured, Hugh held them out to Higgins. "Do give these to our Miss Doolittle."

"Me?!"

"Oh, let me dust off my hands while you get her thanks." And the Colonel nodded toward Eliza with a look that did not allow for refusal.

Pickering stood back and continued, quite needlessly, to brush at his hands. He wondered then that his friend could be so blessedly blind to the nudge he was being given.

There would be hell to pay, Pickering had no doubt, if the younger man did finally cotton on. And Hugh knew what he would say. He muttered it now to himself as he watched the pair slip the bundles into her reticule. "It couldn't be helped. I had to do it, old man."

/ / /

His hat snugged down, Higgins pretended to sleep on the train ride back. He felt completely turned inside out over his behavior that day. He could not explain what had happened. And did not press himself to do so. Henry knew it best to retreat for now.

As he closed his mind to the situation for the moment, he made one allowance. That one promise to himself was that he would not lie to Eliza over this... insanity. He was in no mood to discuss things, certainly. But he knew he couldn't blame her for the confusion he registered.

Higgins peeked then with practiced eyes from underneath the brim of his hat. He watched as his mother took up Eliza's hand and the young woman's tired face worked into a smile.

The professor was not the only one to notice the scene. Nor the only one affected by how fine the day had been. Hugh leaned forward to quickly place his hand upon those of the ladies. He withdrew again when he realised what he had done. Believing his friend asleep, he whispered to the women. "Sorry. Just... such a _lovely_ day. Wasn't it?"

There was a pang in his chest Henry could not explain. He closed his eyes quite tightly then and missed Eliza's murmured response.

It was too much for Eliza that the dear Colonel Pickering too felt some emotion over the day. It only allowed her to fall completely undone. She replayed the scenes from today. And finally stole a glance at the lean, compelling form of the man who played in every one.

She squeezed Eleanor's hand a little harder and turned her head to the woman's shoulder for a moment.

It was too frightening to believe yourself in love with Henry Higgins.


	6. Chapter 6

_/**Oh, Lord, I have lost my brain. I had put up a chapter that was not chapter 6. But then I do not sleep regularly anymore. And checking blood sugars over night means I only look like I am here and aware as I walk about town... or post chapters. In reality, I am down to two brain cells and apparently they were off doing other things this afternoon.**_

_**I am chucking this up as an imperfect flare. (I'm here! I'm here!)**_

_**Things got me here. Wrestled me to the ground. And I have discovered I lack the strength and stamina for wrestling. Suffice it to say, diabetes sucks. Tell me you are still there and that this short, tense bit of heavy breathing pleases./**_

* * *

After Brighton there was a series of nights out for the members of the foursome – nights out (nights complicated, Henry would say) with occasional and blatantly-single male guests. These events came at least every week now. But when Mrs. Higgins had not arranged an evening at the theater, there were simple dinners - just the four of them - at one of the two Higgins' households.

"She will begin to resent these efforts," the colonel whispered to Elenore when she had proposed yet another outing with a friend of hers and that woman's unmarried son.

"I am wondering if someone else may begin to resent them first," she replied.

Because all through this Henry watched. Waited. Wondering if Eliza would latch on to a likely prospect. But Eliza had seen her attachment to Freddy for what it was. That had ended slowly, but had been completely over for weeks now. None of the men Mrs. Higgins introduced her to seemed to stick. She was content, it seemed, to be as independent as the others in this group.

They each professed independence, yes. But there was a dependency between the four of them and an uneasy dependency especially between Henry and Eliza. There were daytime visits to Wimpole Street when she happily walked about the professor's library, a pencil stuck in her hair as she catalogued something for him.

"You've mislaid it!" he roared, one unremarkable morning.

"You've merely hidden it better than ever before," she replied just as sharply.

Henry turned away to shift another pile at his desk. "Ha! I never," he said.

"You always," she murmured to herself, with a smile.

"I heard that!"

"Oh, atta-boy," the young woman said with a touch of her old twang. "Not deaf yet?"

Not romantic words. But he suddenly felt quite breathless, possessed nonetheless. And in that moment all her dig at him had done was make him think that kissing her soundly was the best retort.

Making love to her here pressed against his bookcase, better still.

Henry had stepped closer to her without meaning to. And then realized the shameful thought that had fueled him.

He would not speak his thoughts. Nor would he lie to her. Would not turn what he felt into a false anger the way he might have months ago.

Any ruse would have failed anyway, he thought. Because the girl looked scandalized and slightly worried over what had just transpired. He reclaimed some steady breaths and ducked his head to back away.

He would not lie to her or himself, his brain echoed. Because, it had taken months to finally see that there was something here, something palpable and frightening, that would not give over.

"We needn't worry about that manuscript, Eliza."

"No," she said quietly.

Suddenly, there was enough else to worry about.


End file.
